The Art of Being Human
by Ryssa1457
Summary: He knew other robots didn't feel this way. So why did he? Why did he have the ability to fall in love? Why... why was he so human? Robin/Wally
1. Chapter 1

So this gem here is pretty AU, considering the Boy Wonder is a Teen Wonder and is a robot. Not a cyborg. A robot.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyyyyy. Because I liked writing it!

However, this is a sadsadsad story. I'm sorry for the sadness. And. It's boyxboy love. Or, uh, boyxrobot love. Or. Whatever.

**Disclaimer: I have never, nor will I ever own, Young Justice or any of the characters copyrighted by DC comics.**

* * *

The robot boy blinked. His optical receptors adjusted to the dim lighting, his sensor spheres flipping frantically. He had no new data uploaded, he was new, what was he –?

"Hello Robin. Welcome to the world."

* * *

The robot boy – Robin, he remembered to call himself – was wandering. He was relishing in the feel of things. The air even tickled his throat. He was sure other robots couldn't do that.

He got looks from girls on the street as he tagged along behind Alfred. (Alfred was really nice. He knew all kinds of things and was really patient. Not that the Creator wasn't nice!) Alfred beckoned him closer, and Robin began walking at his side, putting his hands behind his head.

"I'm being observed," Robin said, hearing a human voice come from a mechanical vocal box. "Why?"

Alfred smiled, the skin around his eyes crinkling. "Young women find you attractive."

Robin made a face. How could he be attractive? He knew what it meant of course, but it was a human thing. And he wasn't human.

Alfred tapped his shoulder. "Robin," he said quietly, "you look human. You're practically human. You're a seventeen-year-old human boy."

Robin couldn't help but smile. The old man was so positive.

The next time a girl stared and smiled at him, he smiled back.

* * *

Robin was a crimefighting robot. He worked with the Creator to keep the city safe.

He also worked with these other people, who were not robots. A team of teenagers.

Two teenaged humans, a teenaged Martian, a teenaged fish-boy, and a teenaged clone. And he was not supposed to tell anyone that he was not a real boy. He promised he wouldn't. (Though he felt uncomfortable with secrets...)

But when the Martian girl did the mind meld thing, he was the only one that couldn't do it.

But M'gaan didn't say anything. Robin counted her as his first friend.

He counted the human boy as his second.

* * *

The human boy liked him and he liked the human boy.

Robin made sure to make himself seem powerless and human so that he didn't keep up with Wally. (That was the boy's name.) They would race and Robin would lose and Wally would laugh. Robin would feel the synthetic skin on his face heat up (he'd asked Alfred about it; it's called blushing) and somewhere in his abdomen the feelings of little electrical impulses fluttered about (that feeling is the one of butterflies, Alfred said).

"Well, what do those feelings mean?" Robin asked, his sunglasses sitting on his head as he fidgeted with his utility belt at his home.

"It means you're in love."

* * *

Robin was sure that boys liked girls and fell in love with girls.

But he thought back to his encounter with the thought "attractive" and realized that that's what his brain circuits thought Wally was. He wasn't sure what Wally thought of him, but that was okay. He didn't need to know.

(His brain panel was afraid of rejection.)

The Creator, Robin noticed, had done a wonderful job making him feel like a person.

* * *

M'gaan had very little advice.

"It's because I'm not a person, isn't it?" Robin asked.

M'gaan put a hand on his arm. "You're a person, Robin. People feel things. But..." She squeezed his shoulder. "But he doesn't know that you're not flesh and blood." He was a machine. (Then why did he feel so unbearably human...)

Robin wouldn't tell Wally, then.

His optical receptors stung with a foreign liquid.

* * *

Robin didn't need to confess anything.

Wally kissed him in the hallway on the way to meeting for a mission.

Robin didn't know a metal throat could go dry, but it did. And happiness swelled up so far that he thought for a moment that there was nothing that could make him feel less than human.

"Dude – " Robin said and Wally just kissed him again.

(Wally didn't know he wasn't human. Wally didn't know.)

Wally didn't know.

* * *

Wally found out, of course.

Along with the whole team.

Robin had had to do it. He'd had to grab the beast by its tail and swing. But he wasn't supposed to get chewed upon, his synthetic skin wasn't supposed to come off, and he was most certainly not supposed to be able to incapacitate a dinosaur sized monster with human strength.

All that was really intact was his face.

All that his optical receptors could process were the horrified looks on the faces of his friends.

And on the face of Wally.

* * *

M'gaan came to see him as the Creator fixed everything. M'gaan was the only one.

Robin reached out with his exposed metal hand and touched her wrist. "I'm not a person," he said, quietly. "I'm just..."

He couldn't find the word and M'gaan couldn't supply it.

"I'm not coming back to Mount Justice."

After much protesting, M'gaan delivered the message and Robin became the robot boy once more.

* * *

"Robin - " The comm frequency was registering in his brain. "Robin, help –"

It was M'gaan. Her voice was echoing from his brain circuits. (He'd forgotten to disconnect himself. He supposed that that was a good thing.)

Robin hadn't ever run so fast in his whole existence (because only the living things had lives) and he bulleted through a portal into the chaos of an invaded mountain.

The black ops team of some organization (Robin didn't have time to search his data) was everywhere. He ducked behind the sofa in the living room, listening to the sounds of his friends getting pummeled. The cave was a mess, from what he'd seen in that glance. What had happened - ?

(Wallywallywallypleasebeokay –)

He cut his uniform down the middle and opened his chest cavity. There was something he could do...

Robin began rewiring.

* * *

The beeping was irritating. But it was bearable.

He leapt from behind the sofa to find Wally and Kaldur on their own, M'gaan, Superboy, and Artemis out cold.

It really wasn't hard for a robot such as himself to slam the four baddies to the floor. The few lounging by the door (lazy baddies, tsktsk) responded quickly. But Robin looked over his shoulder at the bewildered expressions on his former friends' faces.

"I'd run. Were I you." Robin said, the beeping getting more insistent. Wally scooped up M'gaan and Artemis while Kaldur got a hold of Superboy.

"See you back in the Bat hideout?" Wally asked, quietly. They made eye contact for the briefest moment and Robin's circuits livened up again and he was in love in love, so unbelievably –

_He's too good for me. Too human._

(Robin remembered their first and only kisses and smiled a human smile.)

"Sure."

And Wally and Kaldur were gone.

Instead of giving chase (lazylazyyyy baddies) all eight stood before him and Robin fell into a fighting stance.

His inner circuitry sizzled –

_Beepbeepbeep_

_BEEPBEEEPBEEEEP_

And Robin exploded, shedding his human lie for the destiny of shrapnel.

(Wallywallywally –)


	2. Your Opinion Matters!

Hey guys who have review and read this (and I assume the other).

I HAVE BEEN CONSIDERING: writing a Batman version of these two works called "The Art of Parenthood" and a M'gaan one called "The Art of Friendship."

I don't know. Those two ideas have kind of just been floating around, and I thought I could make both of them work. It all depends on what you, the readers, would prefer, of course. Because I don't want to seem like I'm milking this thing. I just really liked what I did with it, and I thought that Batman would be someone you guys would be interested in. M'gaan too.

Of course, Robin and Wally's relationship, their little one, would be looked at from two other, rather objective, points of view.

SO. LEAVE YOUR OPINONS IN A REVIEW, PLEASE AND THANKS.

Also, I'm working on another Robin/Wally oneshot.

Only Robin and Wally live. Which is a big deal. :D


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